Fighting for the Survival of Uncontacted Tribes Conserving virgin rain forests and their fauna is one thing. But preserving their people? For many Westerners, the ideal wilderness would seem to be one without humans. From safari reserves to television wildlife documentaries, their spoiling presence is excluded. But in countries where these indigenous tribes persist, there’s another perception: this being the 21st century, not some prehistoric Eden, they should get with the program. If they choose to live like savages, that’s their problem. Fiona Watson of Survival International, the only group to campaign for tribal rights worldwide, first saw the attitude towards South American Indians in their own lands in the 1980s, when, in her previous incarnation as a linguist, she studied the language of the Quechua in the Peruvian Andes. “Here were the Quechua, who’d been here since pre-Inca times–it was their land and their country–and yet there was so much discrimination and racism against them,” Watson recalls. “That’s when I got interested in the whole issue of indigenous tribes.” Top of Form Bottom of Form In her 20 years as a researcher and field director with Survival, Watson has followed the trail of discrimination up to ministerial level. “A lot of the governments look on these people as backward and primitive, and that is often used as a pretext for taking over their land,” she says. “There’s a tendency to look at them and say, ‘Oh, well, actually, they’re the ones who have to catch up and join our world.’ ” Her campaigning work currently focuses on the “uncontacted tribes” of the vast Amazon Basin. These elusive–and, in the opinion of many officials, mythical–peoples made the headlines globally in 2008 when photographs showed brightly painted members of one such tribe firing arrows at a government surveillance aircraft. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Uncontacted Indians in Brazil, May 2008. Many are under increasing threat from illegal logging over the border in Peru. Survival International estimates that there are over 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide. The photos were taken in the state of Acre, northwest Brazil, where the country’s Indian affairs department, FUNAI, estimates there could be up to 600 uncontacted Indians living in four groups. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form The Matis are a recently contacted tribe. Photos © Fiona Watson/Survival Another uncontacted tribe of some 300 individuals, living in the Massacó territory, has been identified in the neighboring state of Rondônia. Watson says the overall estimated number in Brazil has grown rapidly–from an estimated 20-40 uncontacted groups to more than 70 in the space of just several years. Similarly isolated Amazon tribes are reported in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Ironically, “the more penetration there is of the Amazon, the more reports there are of these people,” Watson says. She suspects the reason why they have remained hidden ...